When I was younger, the great excitement of pursuing women was the sense of seduction and romance and chase,

I would prefer that you think I'm gay, rather than trying to hit on you.

Women are frightening. If you get to 41 as a man, you're quite battle-scarred.

Women are frightening. If you get to 41 as a man, you're quite battle-scarred.

The word "romance," according to the dictionary, means excitement, adventure, and something extremely real. Romance should last a lifetime.

He was one of a long line of mimsy and embittered middle-class sensitives who disguised their feeble and decadent lust as something spiritual and Socratic.

And why not? If it meant he had to end his days on some Mediterranean island writing lyric prose for Faber and Faber and literary criticism for the New Statesman, running through successions of houseboys and 'secretaries', getting sloshed on Fernet Branca and having to pay off the Chief of Police every six months, then so be it. Better than driving to the office in the rain.